#22
Imagine you’re about to go on a roller coaster. It will take you to great heights, it will be a thrilling experience, you will learn more about yourself and the world, you might even collaborate or laugh with others as you experience the twists and turns, but ultimately the ride needs to finish because A) you will get tired of it, and B) other people want to take your seat.
If you are truly invested in the present moment during the roller coaster ride, it will be a memorable experience you revisit in your memory with clarity of mind, even long after it’s finished.
That’s what happens when the mind and the heart are in the present moment, we enter a state of flow.
That’s what you wish to achieve every time you get ready for productivity.
But it doesn’t always happen.
Why?
Because we love distractions.
Distractions are easy. As a product of instant gratification, they give us a similar thrill to the roller coaster ride, mentally or emotionally. But since their effect wears off quickly, we must repeat them as soon as they’re done. And so over time we get stuck in a loop, which then turns into a pattern of behaviour, which then becomes procrastination, and so on…
Think about:
mindless social media scrolling or TV binge-watching
giving in to overthinking, intrusive thoughts, doubt
tuning into emotions, nostalgia, melancholy, pain
getting lost in planning for the future, stress, anxiety
What happens is we often get into 4 different patterns that tend to take us away from the present moment for too long:
Not using the mind for too long (mindless social media scrolling)
Using only the mind for too long (intrusive thoughts, overthinking)
Our heart gets anchored in the past for too long (nostalgia, melancholy)
Our heart gets stretched to the future for too long (stress, anxiety, fear)
As we all know, the present moment is where the magic happens. It’s where we connect with people and where we can be productive. It’s also where the ego loses its power and one of its biggest strengths is keeping us distracted for a long time.
Unlike the time we can spend being distracted, however, we can only be productive for a certain amount of hours. So in order to maximise the windows of productivity, we need to be clear about what we’re doing and when we want to do it.
🎢 As you prepare to get on the productivity roller coaster, be clear about 2 things:
How long am I going to be productive for?
How long am I going to be distracted for?
When you’re mindful of the dedicated time you set in advance, you are less likely to get distracted involuntarily. And if you do, you can come back to the present moment with more ease, because you already have a framework to follow.
For example:
My time for productivity is between 8:00 and 11:00, and then between 14:00 - 17:00.
My time for conscious distractions is between 12:00 - 13:00, and then between 18:00 and 18:30.
Anything in between is your buffer time. It’s the time you allocate for facing the unexpected, which is bound to arrive!
